Freelance
Traveller

Neptune Station: Undersea Research Facility,
University, and Community

created by Michael Tumey

This was the featured article in the
June 2015 issue. In
order to keep page loading time and memory requirements reasonable, the
article has been broken up into several pages.
Even so, viewing these pages is
not recommended on download links with speeds less than 1Mbps, and true
broadband capability is strongly recommended.

Main Habitat Dome

The largest of the domed structures houses the
community and habitat levels for the entire station. Within the main
habitat dome are two levels, an upstairs serving as the station
university, with the downstairs as the main community level. Moving top
to bottom, left to right:

Community Level

The habitat dining room occupies the northernmost area of the main
habitat dome, with a kitchen behind a long counter just to its south. As
the station’s only food service facility, a full breakfast, lunch and
supper menu is provided, serving the entire station population. To make
the station more amenable public restrooms exist throughout, with the
first of these west of the kitchen and east of the stairway to the
second floor (University level), which lies opposite the kitchen to the
east.

The 120 Fathoms Lounge lies south of the kitchen on the west, to
provide alcohol and entertainment in the evening hours, closing at
midnight.

Keeping to the west, south of the lounge is the station gift shop
containing clothing, snack foods, beverages, and gift goods – what you
would expect to find in a well-stocked convenience store.

South of the gift shop is the station bookstore, with books fully
serving the university curriculum, as well as fiction and non-fiction
from best sellers to topical materials that serve the interest of the
station population. (The bookstore is marked as a convenience store on
the map.)

South of the bookstore is hair and beauty salon.

To the east of the these four outlets is the station hospital that
includes office and administration, restroom and bathing facilities, an
operating room, nurses station, and a dormitory of sick beds. Two full
time physicians for 3 shifts serve this hospital with a skilled
healthcare staff. A hyperbaric chamber for pressure accidents and
scanning beds, as well as a complete laboratory make a complete hospital
facility rather than a simple sickbay.

East of the hospital is the maintenance room which contains station
cleaning supplies, laundry, as well as backup generators and pumps. The
station’s maintenance elevator which connects the main habitat level
granting access to the warehouse and industrial operations level, though
bypasses the habitat levels.

East of the maintenance room is the station gym facility with
exercise bikes, treadmills, weight machines, free weights, and a mat for
martial arts, gymnastics, dance and other workouts. South of the gym is
a locker room, while to its southwest is a full restroom, sauna,
hot-tubs and shower facility.

To the south of the sauna facility is the station’s brig (jail).
While eight inmate cells may seem too many for such a secure station,
Neptune Station is a kind of regional government facility, serving
nearby undersea mining and science facilities, housing criminals
throughout the region for eventual transport to courts and penal
colonies outside this station.

The entire area south of the brig is station security with a front
and back office, and a rear area containing the security break room,
training area, and a full interrogation chamber complete with adjacent
room and one-way mirror.

South of the Station on the outer edge are two high speed, large
capacity (up to 20) elevators accessing the habitat levels below.

Oceanographic and Marine Biology University Level

Accessed from the stairs adjacent to the station kitchen on the north
side of the main habitat level is the university level. Four large,
tiered classrooms that can contain 400 students, a university
laboratory, and offices for four professors. Extensions from a dozen
major world universities have curricula at this university location.

Editor’s Note: Neptune Station has been released commercially by the
author as a set of maps for Virtual Tabletop
systems such as Roll20, at $3.99 from
DrivethruRPG. The commercial products are at higher resolution than
the maps presented here.

Author’s Note: if you ignore the undersea aspects in the areas
surrounding the main map, as well as finding an alternative to the moon
pool, and oceanography dome, this facility could easily work as a
planetary space station on an airless or exotic atmosphere environment,
so it’s doesn’t solely have to serve as an undersea facility. This map
can be more versatile than that.

The commercial versions of the mapped station are currently scaled at
1 inch = 10 feet. The large, main map measures 72×72 inches, so from
edge to edge the area shown depicts 720 feet making the station an
entire, compact undersea town and really quite extensive. This means
rescaling it to 1 inch = 5 feet would rescale the dimensions to be
144×144 inches, meaning you would have to divide this map into 4
quarters to display on platforms like Roll20. At the 1 inch = 5 feet
scale, even the sublevels and the main habitat level would be larger
than 72×72, so a single full level couldn’t be displayed in its entirety
on a Roll20 screen.